Arlene Daily, executive director of Allentown’s Mayfair festival, was visibly fatigued Sunday, dejected from the fourth straight day of rain at the Memorial Day festival at Cedar Beach.

Areas of the festival path were ankle-deep in water, cordoned off with yellow caution tape. Some vendors along the route had small streams running in front of their tents – a barrier to customers. Others had simply closed up shop and abandoned efforts to salvage the day.

“We set out this year to give it one more try,” Daily said. “But an organization can only take so much loss.”

On Monday, Daily’s spirits – like the day’s sun – was far brighter. And the festival’s crowd much larger.

But the underlying message remained.

If Allentown wants to continue a festival whose fortunes are buffeted by the weather, it has to support it – and not just with attendance on nice days, but with corporate sponsorships, the support of foundations and donations to guard weather-related losses.

Even with a successful Monday, Mayfair will have its second straight year in the red – doubling its debt, which Daily and festival board President Mike Hill delined to specify because receipts weren’t complete. But in general, Daily said, recepts were expected to be about 50 percent of an average year.

Attendance through the first four days – not counting Monday – was likely 20,000 to 25,000, off 50 percent from 2011, a year that also lost money.

And while Daily and Hill talked in terms of changing the festival to make it more viable, when asked for certain whether Mayfair will return for its 27th year in 2013, Hill said, “I don’t think we can say that.”

“It was a difficult year,” Hill said. “It’s not enough to keep a festival like this in its current scope going. We’re going to have to assess what we want to do for the coming years.”

“Everything is on the table,” Daily said.

Hill said it will be a challenge for the festival to continue to get support from equipment and rental vendors if it’s not profitable.

He said he’s gotten a lot of suggestions, such as increasing vendors’ fees or admission cost, but those will raise consumers’ costs. He said one certainty is seeking sponsorships for the festival’s stages – the only one sponsored this year was the Kids Space stage by Lehigh Valley Health Network and Bottom Dollar stores.

“There’s a lot of ideas out there,” he said. “We have to assess everything.”

The festival’s weather woes started with Thursday’s kickoff. A downpour delayed opening ceremonies.

On Friday, there was another downpour before the start of the festival’s musical centerpiece, B-104 Night, which offered a show by nationally charting pop band Boys Like Girls, hip-hoppers Chiddy Bang and TV singing competition “The X Factor” third-place finisher Chris Rene.

Saturday saw Steady showers before and during the festival’s second-biggest musical offering, radio HOLA!’s Latin Night, with national recording artist Marlon. And Sunday had a dinnertime shower, as well.

“Every night from 4 to 6, the storms hit,” Hill said. “The park was starting to fill up when the showers hit, and people ran for cover, and some left.”

Particularly hard hit were food vendors at the festival’s Lakeside stage, on the north side of Cedar Creek. The entire area outside the tented stage was deep mud.

“It’s horrible,” said Tom Boomhower of Rose’s Cheesesteaks, who said he’s been coming to thefestival seven or eight years. The stand’s Rose Wuchter said receipts were “off 200 percent, if that’s possible. It’s a loss. We lost money.”

The pair was critical of Mayfair, saying it made little effort to mitigate the problem – only throwing down straw after vendors collectively threatened to leave, and nothing but minor pumping after that.

“Look at this,” Boomhower said Sunday. “They’ve had all morning to come out and try to fix it. They haven’t been doing anything.” He said vendors were worried about getting out through the deep mud.

Asked how much his sales were off, Kevin Deinarowicz of Smitty’s Frenche Fries replied, “Everything.” But he said Smitty’s does a lot of festivals and, “it’s one of those things. You can’t help Mother nature.”

Daily and Hill acknowledged the Lakeside stage posed difficulties, and “in particular has to be evaluated because of the nature of that location.”

Despite the rain, the festival had several high points, officials and vendors said.

After Daily took over in January, the festival promised to return to its roots, and this year put more emphasis on arts other than music: visual, dance, creative and even culinary. The festival also increased the number of arts vendors to 70 – up more than 50 percent – and many did well, Hill and Daily said.

Sean Brady of Wilkes-Barre, whose stand Wire People Here, sold wire sculptures, said he returned to the festival after three years and was pretty much sold out of small pieces the first day, then of larger pieces by Friday. He said he spent the next two days trying to finish as many pieces as possible to meet demand.

“It was a great show,” Brady said.

At mid-afternoon Monday, the rising temperature had people lined up 20 deep at Danny’s Lemonade, and next door, people were lined up 15 deep at Vince’s cheesesteak stand.

Charles Kalan, who returned this year as Mayfair’s programming director, said even with overall attendance down, the shows were popular.

Even in the pouring rain, more than 1,500 people crowded under the Cabaret tent for B104 Night. Kalan said on Sunday, there were crowds for four stages simultaneously -- Eric Mintel Jazz Quartet on the Esplanade stage, for blues guitarist Craig Thatcher on the Lakeside stage, acoustic rock by the Billy Bauer Group on the Cabaret stage and for cabaret rock by Zen for Primates on the Master Class stage.

Hill and Daily said people returned each night after the storms.

“I think the biggest take-away when I talk to people is how much they want to support us,” Daily said.

Even the performers maintained a good humor. When the group Acoustic Project opened Monday’s festival on the Esplanade stage, the did so with the Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Who’ll Stop the Rain.”

We went last year to Mayfair and it was disappointing, lousy food, junk stands, etc.; vendors charging exorbident amounts for sub-par food, really nothing to see and do. The grounds are in less than acceptable condition. Years ago it was a great event. Evidently Ms. Daily has no idea what attracts people and people to spend. What the fair does not need is a half-a**ed canival atmosphere; you have the Allentown Fair for that. Maybe Ms. Daily should look at what they do at Long's Park in Lancaster, PA.

Posted By: Ron Meleski | May 28, 2012 10:09:37 PM

just end it already

Posted By: cooper | May 28, 2012 10:49:45 PM

This is a joke...

Trust me it had nothing to do with rain! Crazy food prices, sub-par music and a true lack of focus! We told people to stay and they did.

Goodbye

Posted By: Tom | May 28, 2012 11:23:37 PM

We told people to stay away...

Posted By: Tom | May 28, 2012 11:25:28 PM

Please do not take this forum to put this great crew down--this was my first year as a vendor, sure we got crushed!! This was by no means the fault of the committee---------MOTHER NATURE WAS NOT PART OF THE GROUP----------THANKYOU ARLENE AND MIKE---you have our support next year----BERT CHARLIE, PHILLY PRETZEL

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JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.